MIND'S HUNGER & THIRST

The mind runs around in the ten directions; the material or ego-being
(Manmukh) wanders around, deluded by doubt. In his mind, he
continually conjures up material hopes; his mind is gripped by hunger
and thirst (desires). (sggs 776).
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That which stands like a veil between man and the Absolute Reality is the mind
with its outward motion. This mind is none other than the subtle aspect of the
physical body; while the body is its external manifestation. Impure ego-sense
(Haume) is the seed of the mind. To put it otherwise, a thought, a notion
or a concept in action is what we call "mind". In essence, thus, the
conditioned individual mind (Jeeva) is essentially same as Maya (illusion),
relativist consciousness, duality (Doojaa Bhaav), thoughts-stuff, ignorance,
finiteness, time and space, subject-object relationship, phenomenal world, and
so on.

ਅੰਦਰਿ ਤਿਸਨਾ ਅਗਿ ਹੈ ਮਨਮੁਖ ਭੁਖ ਨ ਜਾਇ ॥ ...:
Andar tisnaa aggi hai manmukh bhukh na jaai ...: Within the Manmukhs (ego or
material beings) is the fire of desire; their hunger does not depart. Emotional
attachments to relatives are totally false; they remain engrossed in falsehood.
Night and day, they are troubled by anxiety; bound to anxiety, they depart.
Their repeated suffering never end; they do their deeds in egoism (sggs 1424).

Mayaic mind's function is to produce the phenomenal world; causing bondage through
involvement in it. Bondage is nothing but consequence of the mind emotionally
attached to the senses and the sense-objects. When the mind is so attached to
any of the sensory perceptions, it then perceives the objective world for its
"likes" or "dislikes": delight or anger, desire or grieve,
acceptance or rejections, etc. Thus the mind with its false ego-sense is bondage,
and the extinction of this mind and ego is liberation (Mukti). In other
words, the mind is said to be in Pure or Blissful Awareness when it is unattached
to any sensory perception. In that unconditioned state the world appears as
illusory, like in a moonless night the rope lying on the ground is apprehended
as the snake. But the same mind in its conditioned state — distinguishable from
the Formless, Nameless, and Unborn Truth — creates forms, names or functions
called the phenomenal world.

Mayaic "hunger" or "thirst" of the mind are numerous. These include its wanderings, habits, tendencies or Vaasnaas.
Some of them are internal; and some are external. For example, mind's internal
hungers are material desires (Trishnaa, cravings, etc.), fears, selfishness, corruption, falsehood, frauds,
deception, attributes, doubts, lust, anger, greed, emotional attachments, self
conceit, envy, stubbornness, fame, praise, repulsion and attraction, sense-gratification,
tendencies, impulses, emotions, unrighteous and untruthful living, etc. Mind's
external hungers include names and forms, worldly activities and actions, competition,
smell, touch, taste, seeing, hearing, self-preservation, procreation, security,
eating, and so on. But the worst of the external hunger is indicated to be the
bad company or Kusang.

Human mind's Mayaic hungers are all instinctive forces. They are very
real in animals as well. The functioning of the instinctive mind is controlled
by the driving force coming from the lusty or sexual nature, and habit impressions
stored in the subconsciousness during the childhood and subsequent experiences
of the life journey. In the event we lack or have no mind-control or self-control,
the animal nature takes over completely. As repeatedly indicated in the Gurbani,
the first step on the spiritual path consists in learning and understanding
to harness these numerous variations of the mind's hunger and transmute their
energies into the Higher Nature.

If the Mool (Source...) is the ocean, the mind is like its waves. As the waves stirred
up by the wind rise and fall in the ocean, similarly, when the individual mind
— which in its true nature is Pure — is stirred up by the wind of ignorance,
the waves of thought and concepts appear. This fluctuating or restless mind,
in turn, produces the phenomenal world in which the objects and beings of the
world rise and fall, jostle, play and interact with one another like waves,
all in the ocean of the Changeless and Boundless Mool. This hunger of the mind
for its phenomenal world prevails until the dawning of the Divine Knowledge (Aatm-Giaan)
within.

When mind concentrates on the body-frame then it identifies with the body and
becomes the body itself. What it means is that when the mind is restless, the
body is restless. To the contrary, if the mind is in control, the body stands
conquered. So the body acts as the container or food for the mind through which
it experiences the external world of objects and expresses itself. Thus, when
the mind confounds itself with the body and becomes attached to it than the
pure Mool, it becomes the root of all evils and suffering in the world. As indicated
in the Gurbani, the hunger or wanderings of such mind can never be appeased.

As we can see, the mind is a very complex and powerful instrument. If we analyze
it further, we will find the mind has three states (Avasthaa), namely
waking-state-ego (Jaagrat), dream-state-ego (Swapna) and deep
sleep-state-ego (Sushupti). Its subtle states of the inner psychic world
include various mental phenomena such as instincts, moods, impulses, emotions,
whims, fancies, imaginations, sentiments and temperaments. It is said to have
six important powers: power of perception, power of memory, power of imagination,
power of judgment, power of will or volition and power to hold. It has three
defects: impurity, restlessness and the veil of ignorance. Also, the mind has
three Gunas or qualities: Taamas (inertia, darkness, etc.), Raajas
(passion, activities, etc.) and Saatav (goodness, light, bliss, etc.).
Depending on the quality of the mind, it could be Taamasic, Raajsic
or Saatvic. Additionally, the mind functions through innumerable thought-waves.

Also, the mind is connected with the vital breath. In fact the mind depends
on it. So does the body. Further, just as the body, the mind also depends on
the food for its formation. The food we take in is transformed in three different
ways: the gross or the heaviest portion of it becomes the excrement; that of
medium density is transformed into flesh; and the finest portion goes to form
the mind. Thus, the three qualities of the mind — Saatav, Raajas and
Taamas — are the result of three different kinds of food. Thus, the quality
of one's actions, attitudes and behavior depends on the quality of his mind.
For example, the Raajasic and Taamasic diet excite the mind. Also,
different kinds of foods produce different effects in different parts of the
brain and weaken the immune system. Meditation (Jap or Naam Simran)
is impossible with such weak, restless, unstable, crooked and corrupt mind.
To the contrary, the Saatavic diet calms the mind; hence very conducive
for Shabad-Vichaar.

It is not so easy to tame the hunger of such a mighty ghost of the mind! It
is like walking on a two-edged sword. It is said that one may be able control
the wind or the vicious animals, but it is very difficult to control the mind.
How can then the innumerable hungers of the mind be eliminated? Various terms
such as controlling of the mind, conquering of the mind, annihilation of the
mind, killing of the mind, becoming desireless or detached, becoming egoless
or thoughtless, and so on, are the same as eliminating hunger of the mind.

To weed out the mind's hungers, we need untiring love, faith, concentration
and conviction. Mind has two aspects: one is discriminative and the other is
imaginative. Through imagination, the mind binds itself to the objective world.
In this aspect of the mind, ignorance is active while the discriminating intellect
is turned off. On the other hand, through its aspect of discrimination (Bibek Budhi), it liberates
itself from the bondage. This subtle sense of discrimination helps
one to know the difference between Sat & Asat
(truth and falsehood). A person with discrimination knows that the Absolute
Reality alone is eternal (Sat) and that everything else in this material
world being in the framework of time and space is temporary (Asat).
Thus the mind is the cause of man's bondage as well as his freedom from it.
In other words, the egoistic mind is the root of its hunger or bondage, while
the non-egoistic mind is the root of elimination of its hunger.

Simply put, the mind must be destroyed through the mind itself. Because the
mind is the cause of bondage, and the same mind devoid of ego-sense can lead
back to Absoluteness. This is the Gurbani's edict. Spiritual practices make
the mind strong and thus help awaken the spiritual qualities within. As the
thorn is removed with another thorn, as the venom is antidote to the venom of
snakebite, as the water cleanses a dirty cloth, similarly, having developed
the discriminating intellect (Bibek Budhi ), the hunger of the lower mind (lower
quality thoughts or delusions of the heterogeneous mind) is eliminated through
the Higher mind (higher thoughts or one-pointed mind). In other words, the ego-mind
that has melted away stands stripped of its expressions, delusion, imaginations,
fluctuations and inertia: the hunger. Such pure mind established in the all-pervasiveness
of the Self transcends the duality or Doojaa Bhaav — hunger and satisfaction,
attachment and detachment, freedom and bondage, religion and irreligion, Dharma
and Adharma, sin and virtue, joy and sorrow, and so on. Because in the
absence of dualistic knowledge, everything merges in the Mool (Source...). Such mind is
God-like, says the Gurbani.